When corporate reorganization strikes, spirited journalist Stanna keeps her job but discovers her struggle has only begun. The workplace becomes a sizzling environment as she battles her macho, hard-bodied new boss for control of the Men's Weekly column. She's determined to reform him. He's determined to train her. Neither wants to acknowledge the electricity that pulls at them both.
CHAPTER ONE
"This is difficult for me. Please know that."
He bowed his head slightly, which alarmed her more than anything else. But she listened. What else could she do?
"I believe your work is intelligent and humorous, and could even be very popular, at the right magazine. I'm sure you will have the other editors in this town all begging for your editorial services. But unfortunately, Men's Weekly is no longer suitable for your particular slant. I admire feminists. But your approach isn’t appropriate here any longer."
Jake Tremere gave Stanna what she supposed was meant to be a reassuring and sympathetic smile. It came across a bit stiff.
Stanna's gut instinct had vibrated with tension when the much talked-about, mysterious new owner of Men's Weekly called her to his large but cluttered corner office. The oversized windows offered a panoramic view of the Hollywood Hills, but her eyes were locked with dawning comprehension on the man who'd singled her out of the Men's Weekly gang and who was now tapping his red pencil on the hardened leather covering his mahogany desk. He made her nervous.
It wasn't his shaggy golden-brown hair, too ruggedly unkempt for the white dress shirt he had on. And it wasn't his powerful frame. As the well-built, proud new magazine investor pinned her with an uncompromising stare, a moment of intuition told her exactly what she was about to hear.
"I want you to know there's nothing personal in this. I'm sorry, but I find it necessary to let you go."
Let you go. The words reverberated in Stanna's mind and kept her from concentrating on the rest of the speech being given by the new boss: Let you go let you go let you go. His voice was background noise as she considered those very important words.
Strangely, she felt a keen disappointment that this particular man wanted to be rid of her. Had to be the shock.
He actually thought he could waltz in here, fire the old editor Ian, then fire her, all before unpacking his luggage.
He’d gotten away with axing Ian, which was a crying shame. Everybody missed him and was busy speculating about what kind of boss would make firing the editor his first order of business. Ian was a decent enough man, even if he hadn't exactly turned the magazine into a pot of gold. He certainly didn't have a problem with so-called feminists. She owed him for hiring her as a columnist at the Los Angeles-based Men's Weekly when all she’d had to offer was barrels full of enthusiasm and a great column idea. He’d been more than a boss. He’d been her mentor.
Gone now, fired by this pencil-tapping autocratic man in front of her because there wasn't enough of a profit. And he thought he was going to "let her go" as well. Perhaps he actually believed exorcising the feminist would improve the format.
She looked up to discover that Jake had stopped talking and was staring at her. She supposed he was waiting for some kind of response. Tears, perhaps. He would be disappointed. She raised a brow and let her gaze drift to the surface of his desk.
The flat expanse was still piled with full cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked, and his upper chest and head were framed between two of them. He was handsome, she couldn't deny that. With his broad shoulders and longish shadow-gold hair, he'd make any woman look twice. And his eyes! The almond-shaped aqua-greenish jewels were set in an outdoorsman's face. Though they weren't slanted in any way, they gave a falcon-like impression of cruelty. They were beautiful, and she felt herself flushing slightly in reaction to their steady regard.
Especially when those eyes traveled the length of her body, slowly and arrogantly. Her rose cardigan sweater fit somewhat snugly, offering no protection from his measuring gaze, which insolently roved over her relaxed gray slacks with a practiced look. He did it so casually that she wondered for a moment if he were just taking note of her business-casual attire. No, there was a very masculine approval in his eyes.
And she was pretty sure it wasn't because he liked her outfit.
She couldn't believe it: he'd just told her she was out of a job, and yet he had the nerve to peruse her physical attributes. Her body tingled unsettlingly while her mind registered the violation to propriety. He was exactly the type of guy she was trying to reach in her column.
It was going to be a pleasure to inform mister boss-man he couldn't "let her go."
His eyes finally fell to a stack of papers on his desk and he evened them out in a gesture of finality. His tone was almost gentle. "I take it from your silence that you have a full understanding of my reasoning and no objections to this purely business decision? Fine. In that case, I'll have your final paycheck mailed--"
"Excuse me," Stanna broke in. "You can't fire me."
The empathy disappeared from his face. Jake's look of displeasure pleased her. The look was quickly masked and a bureaucratic robot responded in a rehearsed-sounding monotone, “I understand how you feel. It's difficult and traumatic for these things to occur in one's life but if you can rise above this minor setback and persevere—"
"No. You don’t understand," Stanna interrupted softly, noting how the displeasure immediately reappeared on his face. His forehead creased into fierce lines. So, he didn't like being interrupted.
She smiled. "You can't fire me. Legally. Unless you want to buy off my contract, which I hope you don't do because I enjoy working here. Also, it would be very expensive for you. Really expensive."
"Contract. You're saying you have a contract?" For the first time, Jake seemed slightly uncertain.
"If you'll consult the company records, you'll find my three-year contract, of which I still have two more years as the exclusive writer of our 'Woman's Word' advice column. Of course, I also work as copy editor and assist with my share of the administrative stuff, too..." Stanna tapered off into silence as the expression on Jake's face alchemized slowly into a controlled dislike: first the wide and finely-shaped lips dipped almost imperceptibly at the corners, then that forehead furrowed once more.
He stood. "Please excuse me for a moment." Reflexively, her eyes skimmed over the hard-muscled figure that revealed itself when he stood. She jerked her eyes away immediately, peeking only when he turned his back. He circled his desk and strode quickly and deliberately toward the door. His movements were taut with suppressed energy, and as smoothly confident as any creature in its natural habitat. His khaki dress slacks and the tucked-in white shirt fit so perfectly that the designer might have used Jake's muscled body type to design them, but Stanna thought he'd probably be just as comfortable in an animal pelt. For some reason, the odd thought intensified her tingling reaction to him.
And directly on the heels of that thought, red danger signals began blinking in her mind. She needed to ditch thoughts like those, pronto.
She called after him sweetly as he walked out of the office, "The records are located in the northeast corner of the floor, in the gray cabinets." He shut the door firmly behind him -- a not-slam that really wanted to be a slam. Stanna grinned.
Why had he bothered to soft-pedal the termination, Jake wondered to himself as he rested the damned file on one khaki-slacked knee. He had been so professional about it, to the point of having a slimy taste in his mouth due to some of the corporate-smoothster language he had used. Not his usual style. Not that any style would have done any good, according to the evidence perched on his knee.
Of course Ian hadn’t told him about this. Oh, no. Ian had pulled a fast one on Jake, telling him Stanna was a permanent employee. Permanent his ass. She was contracted, though. Legally contracted. He couldn’t get rid of her as easily as a firing.
And damn it, after she butted in, interrupting him twice, he'd especially wanted her the hell off his magazine. If there was one thing that bugged him about women, aside from their manipulations, games, cattiness, and general untrustworthiness, it was when they cut him off. That kind of aggression, as far as he was concerned, defined too many modern females: disrespectful and intruding where they weren’t wanted.
He mused that his careful termination speech might have had something to do with the young blonde's delicate good looks. She'd seemed so deceptively fragile at first, he hadn't wanted to hurt her. Rather, he'd wanted to make it easy on her.
Ha.
The only fragile thing about her was her tempting little body. He'd never had a weakness for ballet-bodied blondes, but her slender figure and shiny helmet of straight, just-past-shoulder-length hair were elegant. Pretty. Very different from Jolene.
The memory of his last girlfriend rose like an unwelcome guest in Jake's head. Dark, curly hair, sparkly brown eyes and voluptuous curves that she’d used to best advantage. Just as she’d used him.
Jake shook his head to rid it of her image.
He'd like nothing more than to warn the poor slobs out there who didn't know the dangers of twenty-first-century women. He rose to his feet, slapping the file a couple times onto his left palm. The damning file telling him that Stanna's contentious presence -- he remembered the smug way she’d called after him with the cabinet's location -- would be around for another two years, unless he had a tidy bundle of cash to buy her off. Which he didn't, of course. His life's savings, including the small sum that came to him when his parents passed away, were sunk beyond sight in this dark horse of a magazine.
Despite himself, he started feeling the familiar twinge of excitement as he thought of how he was going to turn Men’s Weekly around. Ian had been doing it all wrong, letting the men's magazine degenerate into a wimpy politically correct rag that hurt nobody's feelings and bored everybody with be-nice advice and tepid stories.
The previous absentee owner-investors had treated the magazine like their other hands-off investments. From what he'd heard, they rarely even came in the building, so long as the investment dollars trickled in. Luckily for Jake, when the profits started looking unreasonably poor to them, they were more than willing to listen to Jake's offer to take the dying magazine off their hands. It had cost him nearly his entire sizeable fortune, but he knew that Men's Weekly was a winner.
All it needed was a change in how it talked to the men who read it. A firming-up of editorial slant. It was so simple, really, he was surprised that Ian hadn't thought of it:
Men wanted to read about men things, from a man's perspective, and get masculine-type advice. Men want to be real men, they want to understand women, they want to get sex, and they want magazines to show them how. Jake planned to give them that, and Stanna stood in the way with her inappropriate 'Woman's Word' advice column. It wouldn't do. It was his magazine now, and Stanna, along with the modern world’s popular new political correctness regarding women, could go take a flying--
"Didn't like the shape of your file?" asked Michael. The stocky, pony-tailed art director was in his early thirties, the same age as Jake. No one would’ve guessed. There was something of the eternal youth attached to Michael, in a flamboyant, suspiciously "arty" way. He paused in his stroll down the hallway to flash his white teeth at Jake's confusion.
"What? Oh." Jake looked down to see the forest-green hanging file folder with the dirt on Stanna, now crumpled almost to a ball. He smoothed it out, ruefully grinning back at Michael. "I was just thinking about something."
"Just hope it wasn't me," Michael tossed over his shoulder, along with a wink, and sauntered down the hall. His untucked vibrant Hawaiian print shirt swayed gaily with the movements of his hips. Jake stared after him for a moment or two in mild suspicion, then shrugged his shoulders, amused. His new employees were a varied bunch. But as long as they could do their jobs the way he directed, he didn't care.
Which brought his thoughts back to Stanna: What was he going to do with a feminist columnist on a men’s magazine, when his program for success called for male-bonding writing?
Fire her, of course, like he had the previous editor. Like excising a tumor, he would cut out the bad and also cut down on overhead. Beautiful simplicity. But it wasn't to be that simple, he thought as he glared at the offending green file, putting it back in the gray cabinet before he could maim it further.
The 'Woman's Word' advice column would have to stay. Stanna herself would have to stay. And he had nothing to say about it -- yes, he did. Jake narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. He couldn't fire her, it was true, but he did have control over her. Over her writing, anyway. The editorial content in his own magazine belonged to him. Stanna would just have to write in a Men's Weekly way. Goodbye "Woman's Word," hello..."Stan Says." That had a nice ring to it.
The idea might be so repugnant to her sensibilities. she might voluntarily give up the column in favor of more appropriate duties. Maybe she'd even leave.
Jake realized that he was psyching himself up as it were a ball game, justifying what he was about to do. Which, if he were honest with himself, was to haunt her out of the house. He had a moment's twinge of guilt, thinking of the slender young girl in her cute pink sweater, waiting in his office.
Then he remembered why she was waiting. He shrugged the guilt off. He strode back down the hall purposefully. Business was war.
Stanna looked up at her new boss leaning against the cluttered desk and wanted to spit into his aqua eyes. "You're telling me," she paused to get her breath because her voice was hitching with fury, "I have to have a guy name? That my column has to reflect your Neanderthal point of view? Forget what's best for them, and just--"
"As the owner of the company, I decide what's best for my readers. The column should not be Neanderthal, though I'm not surprised to hear a feminist call it that." He said the word as if it were vulgar. His mouth was a thin contemptuous line, all traces of empathy gone. A purely ruthless businessman. "I think, if you decide to continue as Stan the columnist..." he paused, seeming to enjoy her discomfort, “you’ll need more education on the subject of men's interest columns. Specifically, what men are interested in. You might want to pick up a copy of Robert Bly's Iron John. It's a book about--"
"I know what that book's about," Stanna interrupted, barely holding onto her temper. She felt her own lips compressed into a thin barrier against profanity. "It's about a bunch of guys who wish they were born in a century where it was still cool to carry a club and drag a woman by the hair." She could see he wasn't going to respond to her words. In fact, this time the interruption barely made him blink, though she could tell it bugged him. He sat down leisurely, looking dangerously expectant. She lowered her voice, trying to sound reasonable. She had to convince him.
"Men don't want that sort of old-fashioned philosophy anymore. They want to know about modern men and women, modern solutions, how to deal with the latest relationship issues of today. I've been educating them in the column, giving them the tools they need to be sensitive people."
"Have you?" His hooded eyes sank over her figure, deliberately roaming the front of her rose-shaded sweater, then flicking back to her face. Heat mounted to her cheeks, probably staining them the same color, she thought furiously. She opened her mouth to really slam him. But he spoke again in the same measured tone. "And is it your vast experience with men that makes you such an expert?"
Her head fell forward slightly, her eyes still locked on his. Had she heard him correctly? There really was no way of misinterpreting that knowing gaze.
He was absolutely still, head tilted slightly to one side as if in anticipation of her answer. She didn't answer right away, offended into immobility and yet finding it difficult to unlock her gaze from his. His tropical-ocean eyes simmered with a strange heat as he added quietly, unsmiling, “You’re an innocent, aren’t you? I should show you just how wrong your assumptions are."
Her body's immediate reflex-reaction to his soft words was to tingle warmly. His powerful, mesmerizing eyes; his superbly conditioned body costumed in banker business-wear; his shaggy hair; the controlled edges of his thin, wide lips. The softly delivered sentence. She didn't blame her body for responding the way it did. She only wished, in that moment, it had selected any other man but the one in front of her who looked so… ready.
First she tore her own eyes from his, as they were no doubt telegraphing her inappropriate, ill-timed desire. Inappropriate, she emphasized to herself. Bad timing, she added. Calming down from her electric reaction, she wondered for the second time in an hour if her imagination was playing tricks with her.
She had to play it cooler than she felt.
She tried to appear to seriously consider his "show you” comment, raising her eyes to meet his. She tried to look cool. Cold, even. No, she couldn’t sustain cold. Instead, she promised him, "I'll show you a swift kick where it hurts if you hit on me again."
The chilly smile Jake bestowed on her trumped her heat. "Fair enough, Stanna, but you'll write what I need written, or else I'll have to 'edit' your column extensively every week. And by edit, I mean rewrite. I'd appreciate it if you'd learn the new editorial policy and implement it immediately."
"And if I don't?" Now, why was she goading him? Stanna felt like kicking herself rather than Jake. She had such trouble playing it cool.
Jake smiled, amused. She cared for that sort of smile even less than the chilly one. How could such a good-looking man be such a jerk? His heartbreakingly-shaped but cruel mouth parted to deliver equally cruel words: "If you don't, then you may find that this magazine becomes an unpleasant working environment for you. Let me be frank. Due to the existence of that contract, we both know that I can't fire you -- unfortunately for the magazine. But I can make you want to leave. Or, you may eventually choose to renegotiate your contract. For example, you might have value as a receptionist."
Stanna felt her control strain. She mentally listed all the things she could sue him for if she were inclined to duke it out in court rather than at the office. Luckily for him, that went against her own sense of fairness, like running in to tell mommy and daddy that Rickie next door wasn't playing nice. She'd had guy friends all her life, and she knew how to deal with them. Jake was a guy like any other. Easy to handle. No sweat, no lawyers, no complexity.
Well, maybe a bit of complexity.
Jake watched her with his predator-eyes, obviously relishing the thoughtful wariness she was sure showed on her face.
A guy like any other.
Except…
It was one thing for him to say that he had a problem with her work; it was another to engrave the line so clearly between them. He must really dislike her. The feeling was wholeheartedly returned, she decided.
Jake's condescending voice insinuated itself again. "Consider broadening your horizons about the column. You don't have the proper equipment to truly relate to men, in the most basic physical ways. But there's always research." He smiled lecherously, and she had no doubt about what kind of research he referred to.
He pushed his chair back and stood. "Men's Weekly won't support your female-cozy columns any longer. Make 'Woman's Word' -- I mean, 'Stan Says' -- something of interest to men." He paused, then added, speaking slowly and gently, "Not all of us guys out there are cavemen, Neanderthal or otherwise. We're just sick of all the overreacting feminists." He walked to the door, opening it to indicate the conversation was over.
Game, set, and match to the man in the khaki slacks. This time. Stanna rose, seeking her dignity. She wasn't going to let him get away with this. She couldn't. 'Woman's Word' was her column, her way to reach men like Tarzan, here. To teach them what she was in such a perfect position to know: what works with women, and what doesn't. She wasn't going to freak out. She wasn't going to cry, or run away, or anything else he expected. Thanks to her tomboy youth and guy friends, she understood men better than Jake knew.
He would not eliminate her valuable job like so much boot scraping. She controlled the stress-reaction trembling of her mouth with supreme effort.
She mentally commended herself for the easy way she glided to the door, keeping her expression carefully neutral. It was hard to keep it that way, though, when he smugly tossed the reminder after her, "Copy's due tomorrow," but she managed. Barely.
Men's Weekly took up an entire floor in the five-story building, with its advertising department, copy department, and separate dimly-lit and funkily-decorated art department. The shoulder-high partition setup let the departments communicate easily. It also allowed people to drape over them and chit-chat. Stanna liked the friendly camaraderie and teamwork she shared with her co-workers. Despite the separate groupings for departments, everybody truly worked in synch with everybody else, and her few previous post-college work experiences let her appreciate the difference at Men's Weekly. How lucky she was to work in the glamorous world of magazine publishing. It was a good job she had, especially for a twenty-five-year-old, and she knew it.
But at the moment she had a hard time appreciating it. She hurried back to her cube directly, because she didn't want to inadvertently take out her bad temper on anyone. She seated herself in her cube and stared unseeingly at the computer monitor, at her half-finished 'Woman's Word' column. She'd heard the expression, "cross-eyed with anger" before, but she was experiencing it firsthand. The text on the screen flip-flopped and she figured her eyes were as crossed as they could get.
Bad enough that he’d fired Ian and then dictated a column sex change. Worse, though, was that he’d killed a dream: she had, with Ian's encouragement, coveted the position of "Editor" for herself. Ian wasn't too many years from retirement. It could’ve happened.
The grizzled old guy, a veteran of dozens of publishing companies all over the country, could be a little out of it, a little uninvolved, maybe. But he let her do what she wanted. He used to look at her with a strange twinkle in his pale gray eyes and talk about retiring early to bass-fish. He would talk in his funny faux pirate accent and command her to "look after the ship" after he left, as if he was some kind of boat captain.
What changes she could have made in Men's Weekly! Big changes, moneymaking changes. Most of all, educational changes. She’d fully planned on making Men's Weekly a progressive, cultural 'zine that never, ever resorted to woman bashing. But now, with Jake at the tip-top of the chain of command, she wouldn't get the chance to make those big changes. Instead, he was going full-throttle with his own.
"You don't have the proper equipment to truly relate to men, in the most basic physical ways." That just wasn't true. Men and women were human beings and basically the same, just with internal versus external equipment. Why did some people make such a big deal out of the plumbing? Those people were wrong.
People like Jake who perpetuated that way of thinking were dangerous to the idea of basic equality. She'd known the type before. Been friends with some, even. Which was the reason she got hot under her cardigan over Jake's smug, insufferable, arrogant attitude. It wasn't right to shovel females into that limiting bucket o' bimbos. It wasn’t fair.
Maybe he thought his readers wanted a James Bond/Larry Flynt combo, a column about the finer attributes of women who were four feet tall with a flat head -- all the better for setting your beer down, went the sexist joke. Or perhaps a modern-style Conan critique of large versus small rear ends. She could hear the locker-room laughter already. She couldn't bring herself to write like that. And she shouldn't have to. 'Woman's Word' was hers!
Especially since she’d offered Ian the column idea even before she was hired. She wanted to write a civilized and enlightening women's opinion column for men. During her interview, she'd pitched the idea with all the enthusiasm her heart could muster, and Ian had been so impressed that he not only assigned her the column, but also agreed to her ambitious terms for a contract: Three years.
Unfortunately, she was sure the contract wouldn't protect her column from Jake's editing each week as he threatened. As the head honcho, he had the right to alter her copy. Her mind, in good journalistic spirit, faithfully documented her feelings about that: Magazine columnist's head cooks to boiling point and then explodes in a superheated geyser of blood! Magazine's new owner comments, "That's what happens to angry feminists. In our next issue, Men's Weekly explores this phenomenon in our new replacement column, 'Stan Says'--with a new replacement writer."
She ground her teeth together in frustration. She could leave, she supposed. Or become a receptionist. She couldn't believe he had the gall to suggest that one.
She focused on the screen in front of her: her column. She couldn't give it up without a fight. Getting the column was the biggest achievement of her life. She’d had a career setback, but she wasn’t out for the count.
That would let Jake and what he represented win.
And, though she didn't particularly want to, she could see why he was being so stubborn and blind. It was because the jerk believed that junk about her not having the proper equipment. He was misinformed, of course.
About the "proper," not about her "equipment," she wryly mused to herself with a flush of amusement that soothed her ruffled psyche.
She snorted, and smoothed the wrinkles out of her pants. She wondered if a guy like that was even a little bit redeemable. It was possible, she mused. Highly unlikely, but possible.
She stared at the screen for a long time, but no column ideas came to her.
"He sounds like a charmer." Telly scooped another green grape from the bowl nestled next to her on the antique chaise lounge and dropped it into her lush mouth, Cleopatra-style.
Stanna felt the tension of the workday begin to drain away in the familiar environment of the two-bedroom apartment they shared, but she knew her stiff perch on the edge of their cream-colored couch told her best friend and roommate even more than her tirade.
For her part, Telly stretched out sinuously, catlike. She reposed in a velvety midnight-blue nightgown that was just a touch too fancy for the casual event of two roommates lounging at night. But that was just Telly being Telly.
Stanna herself wore simple sweatpant cutoffs and a T-shirt. It was amazing, she thought, that the day's confrontation hadn't given her a monster headache instead of just stringing her emotions taut. The single glass of red wine was helping, but after unburdening herself to Telly about her experiences with her new boss, she still felt the urge to vent.
"It's not just that he wants to make the magazine more profitable. It's that he really hates women. The guy had that look in his eyes that says, 'You are a bug.'" Stanna demonstrated by narrowing her eyes the way she'd seen Jake do, and then exaggerating an affected disdain that made Telly nearly choke on a grape with laughter.
"He probably feels threatened by you," Telly said when she caught her breath. She smilingly ran one painted-nail finger over her hip and Stanna had no doubt she was thinking of times when she had "threatened" the males of the species. But for all of her obvious charms, she still hadn't found Mr. Wonderful, either.
Stanna surreptitiously evaluated Telly's looks: short, spiky blond hair, perfect makeup, voluptuous body. And, of course, excellent taste in clothes.
Very different from her own minimalist makeup style. Her single tribute to face paint was her dark pink lipstick, and the lack of other makeup made hers a "French" style, she’d read somewhere. Which sounded way more glamorous than she was. She kept her straight, thick, blunt-cut blond hair clean and frizz-free.
Her body was not nearly curvy enough, she compared, critical. But she was happy enough with her bod. Since she'd been an adult she'd never been confused for a boy. Telly was better endowed, maybe, but she always moaned about men gawking at her more generous chest long before they noticed she had a brain.
Stanna considered Telly's comment that Jake might feel threatened, for all of two seconds, then shook her head. "He's too in-control for that. Like nothing could faze him." She stared at a spot in the cream couch and tried to imagine the strong, powerfully athletic man who was her boss feeling threatened. She failed utterly. She was unaware of Telly eyeing her speculatively, with a mischievous smile curving her flawlessly lipsticked mouth.
"You could..." Telly paused dramatically and then continued with the seriousness of a scientist announcing a medical breakthrough, "try tickling him."
Stanna greeted that outrageous statement with an unladylike snort of laughter. She felt her face completely relax at the thought of tickling Jake. "That would be about as effective as tickling a marble statue."
Telly paused her hand in mid grape-delivery and raised one thin brown eyebrow theatrically. "He's that good-looking?"
"Believe me," Stanna responded emphatically, feeling her face tighten once more, "good-looking means nothing when the personality is poison. And this man has RAID running through his veins. Regarding women, anyway. I don't know how I'm going to work under him for another two years." What was it about the man that just the thought of him made her skin crawl interestingly and her muscles tense as if in anticipation of a fight?
"From the look on your face when you were thinking of tickling him," Telly needled, "you wouldn't mind working... under… him too terribly much." Stanna glowered at her roommate, punching a crocheted beige pillow to emphasize her next words. "No! No matter what kind of pheromones he oozes that let me ever even consider... that... which I have not, just for the record... but even if I had..." She paused for a deep breath, trying to compose her words. It was tough, trying to explain why she could never be intimate with Jake, and she wasn't sure why. The man was like some kind of a wicked demon, for crying out loud. Absolutely off limits.
Telly smiled affectionately and said, "Enough about that." Stanna nodded in agreement, waving her hands in the air dismissively, as if to wave away a bad odor. "My guy situation is exactly the same as it has been since I moved down here, since we won't count that ogre-in-residence at work. What about you? Any fun prospects?"
"Only if you think putting together rare sci-fi monster models for 3 hours is fun." In answer to Stanna's questioning look, Telly grumbled, “Don’t ask. Where, I would love to know," she paused dramatically, and Stanna joined her in the little ritual, "are the really good men?" They gave each other matching lascivious grins. "But, not too good."
"They're all home reading my column," Stanna quipped.
Telly looked at her with interest. "Do you ever get fan mail from them? With pictures, maybe?"
Stanna thought back. "That's funny... I never thought about it, but I haven't received even one fan letter from a guy. I got a couple of emails from grateful girlfriends who read the column. They were really positive emails, praising me for keeping up the good fight. Nothing from a guy." Stanna arched her back, stretching the kinks out, then shrugged. "They'll thank me when they see how well my advice helps them in their lives, especially in relationships."
"I've read your column, and I agree one thousand percent," Telly said. "If my sci-fi friend on Friday had read your column...if any of my recent dates had read your column... my weekends would offer better memories."
"And mine," Stanna moaned. "What's with our luck lately? My few dating adventures here were a waste of time, too. Is it a big-city thing, maybe? The guys here are just freaks? I dunno. The more I hear from you, the more I want to stick to red wine and a good book on Friday and Saturday nights."
Telly spoke again, reproachful. "You can't just hide. The dears can't all be duds. There are good companions out there."
She sounded to Stanna as if she were trying to convince herself as well, and Stanna couldn't resist: "The best ones have a lot of fur, cuddle with you on command, and are affectionate and obedient by nature." Now, why was she suddenly thinking of Jake's golden chest hair peeking through the V of his white shirt? Shaking her head and smiling, she added, "And if they're bad, you can give them a good smack."
Telly whistled. "Careful what company you spout that sort of thing in. If a guy said that, he'd be carted off for a chauvinist pig."
"Pigs are better, too. Nice, clean pets."
Bemusedly imagining a pot-bellied pig trotting across her light-brown berber carpet, Stanna rose from the sofa to get some food for her empty stomach. The wine clearly had taken over her brain. "The problem with men -- and I've said this in my column -- is that they're too male." Her gray eyes sparkled with humor.
"Exactly!" Telly agreed. "Now, why can’t they be masculine without those nasty old side affects? Something ought to be done." She put her arms out in front of her, palms up, and loudly beseeched an unseen audience, "Somebody do something!"
"How about... governmental deprogramming!"
"A medical study!"
"Female hormones in the drinking water!"
"A woman for President!"
"Penile shut-off switches! They have chemical castration for pedophiles, so it could be done…"
"A cult of modern-day Amazons!"
Stanna suddenly became quiet on hearing that. She paused halfway between the couch and the kitchen, and stared fixedly into the distance. What a neat idea. Women banded together to show that men weren't the only ones who could kick ass.
"Stanna. You're getting an idea, aren't you?" Telly didn't sound surprised. Living with a columnist, she was used to Stanna's creative fugues. Stanna murmured to herself, "Cults are pretty common, actually. Maybe not of Amazons. I mean, that wouldn't fly, would it? They kill people, and the whole right-breast removal thing sounds a little gratuitous. But a group of modern women who want good guys instead of the jerks that are out there… it might just get a lot of media attention and volunteers."
Stanna turned to catch Telly peering at her suspiciously. "Are you going to start your own little tribe?" She tipped an index finger at her, an I've-got-it gesture. "This is because of your new boss, isn't it?"
"No," Stanna replied a shade too quickly. "Well, maybe," she amended, to be fair. "Maybe I just like the thought of Jake Tremere trussed up and hanging over a bubbling cauldron ringed by tough chicks. He needs a demonstration that men are not roughly forty feet higher on the food chain than women."
"Cauldrons and food chains!" Telly giggled. "You know what Freud would say about your edible metaphors? That you want his meat dipped in your cauldron!"
Stanna lunged for the couch and hurled an embroidered pillow at Telly. Telly dodged, still laughing. Freud was a fool, anyway. Just another man who thought with his phallus and thought everyone else did the same. "Ooooh," she suddenly said, thoughtful.
"Another idea?"
Stanna felt a devilish grin stretch her lips. "Woman's Word' just got the word, thanks to Freuddy-poo. And Jake won't like it at all."
"Uh, Stanna? Not to state the painfully obvious, but didn't he tell you to change the 'Woman's Word' column? And, isn't he your boss?" Telly's expressive eyes managed to both smile and telegraph her concern.
"He's the editor, which I would've been if it wasn't for him," Stanna replied, frowning. Thoughts of food fled her mind. Jake was mangling her column and her career. Intolerable.
Before she knew it, she was halfway down the hallway. "I'll talk to you later," she called back over her shoulder, belatedly. Oh, well. Telly knew she was impulsive and wouldn't take her abrupt departure personally. Her roomie was probably rolling her eyes with the kind of eloquence and grace only Telly could manage.
She sped to her bedroom and flew to her desk, parking herself in front of Old Reliable. She stroked the keyboard, composing the column in her mind before typing a word. Then she began.
Reviewing it an hour later, she couldn't help laughing. It worked just fine in letting her new boss know she wasn't one to be pushed around, and she felt oh so much better now too. This was even better than drinking wine and talking to Telly, 'cause the tyrant in the corner office would actually read this!
He would recognize himself in her column, since she talked about a testosterone-soaked caveman who made business decisions with his "divining rod." She hoped it made him mad enough to call her into his office again. This time she'd be prepared, though. Now she knew what to expect. Kind of.
Not really.
Well, maybe she didn't hope he called for her. Maybe magazine life could continue on uninterrupted, though, the way it used to be. Surely he had better things to do, other responsibilities of managing the magazine business.
He’d just have to wake up to modern reality. It wasn't fair or appropriate to change her column to be the voice of Neanderthals, men's magazine or not, and it wasn’t good business despite his misguided opinion. He might give her a man's byline. "Stan" was the name he’d picked out, she thought with amusement. How many people would even be fooled by the changing of her name?
But rewrite her entire column? He wouldn’t have time.
She suddenly wondered what revenge he would have time to take. Might he use his red editor’s pencil on her column? Or might he do something worse? For a moment, a shadow of dread passed over her and a calm and reasonable voice within her asked if she knew what she was getting into.
Stanna acknowledged the voice's point even as she reached for a paperclip to fasten the editorial runsheet to her column. It really was much too late for second thoughts. She'd taken her stand.
Unlike some people who questioned themselves into a corner, she'd stick by her decision until she succeeded. Or until someone convinced her men didn't desperately need to hear what she had to say in her column every week.
Not bloody likely.
She felt a shiver of anticipation. Wondering at it, she realized she was looking forward to the battle.
